I recently read Jim Randel’s “The Skinny On: The Housing Crisis.” I don’t know if you’ve seen any of these books before, but he also writes other “The Skinny On” books, including “The Skinny On: Willpower” and “The Skinny On: Credit Cards.” You would think a book on the housing bust would be just that- a bust; in other words, in my mind it wouldn’t be an exilirating read at all. The neat thing about “The Skinny On” books is that every page is illustrated using stick figures.

Billy and Beth are our two main characters. The book takes you through their experience purchasing a home that they couldn’t afford, from their first encounter with a real estate agent, to the negotiations with a mortgage broker, and ending with signing the papers with a lawyer on a home that was later foreclosed on. The book is about 270 pages, and it’s an easy enough read that you can knock it out in 45 minutes.

I recommend this book to anybody! I feel much better educated about the mortgage crisis and what caused it after having gone through this experience with our two stick figure friends, Billy and Beth. “The Skinny On: The Housing Crisis” even does a good job to explain what happened on Wall Street to cause the financial meltdowns. I was never entirely clear on what happened, and this book managed to answer many of my questions

The main thing that I learned from reading this book was that there was no responsibility for the poor loans issued to many unqualified people. The real estate agents didn’t care; the mortgage brokers didn’t care; parts of Wall Street didn’t care. All of these people were making commissions off of the sale of the loans. The sub-prime loan that originated with the brokers ended up getting sold several times to other investors, many of which were overseas!

If you want a fun, simple read to better understand the housing crisis, check out “The Skinny On: The Housing Crisis.”

I haven’t read this or any of the “skinny-on” books, but your review of it here certainly fits with my understanding of how the housing crisis played out. Some of these brokers/salespeople even physically went overseas to do the same thing with folks in Norway and other places – no sense of any higher responsibility or even awareness about the nature of their actions.

Trevor,
I’m always looking for new resources, so I appreciate being introduced to something I’d never heard of before. I own lots of the “For Dummies” books, so this is right in my wheel house.
Thanks,
Brandon